Child soldier, 14, already a veteran of South Sudan's civil war

“I was the one who decided to go to the army. I was not taken by force,” he said. “I went to a military base and told them I wanted to join.”

Army bases in South Sudan are little more than clusters of mud huts surrounded by foxholes and machine gun nests. Whoever was in command of the position visited by Gatwech clearly had no qualms about accepting a child who was only 13 at the time.

The boy was trained how to use a Kalashnikov before being sent into battle against rebels in Unity State. “I have been in a fight,” he remembered. “I saw dead bodies on the ground during that fighting. But if you are a man, you are not supposed to fear death.”

Gatwech has never been to school: he can neither read nor write. He proclaimed himself uninterested in learning these skills - or spending any time in the classroom. “I don’t want to go to school – I want to stay a military man,” he said. Gatwech conceded that his mother was worried about him, but added: “I want to be in the army whether my mother likes it or not.”

A sense of power and belonging means that some boys have genuinely volunteered to fight in South Sudan's war. But many others have been forcibly recruited by the opposing forces. If Gatwech ever changes his mind and decides to go to school instead of serving as a combatant, he may not be free to leave the life he claims to have chosen.